Horrible working conditions in China!

[WillBrink]

Or not...Mike Daisey did a big expose and on the horrible working conditions in Apple factories in China which got a lot of attention.

One problem, he made most of it up! He's another attention seeking POS pathological liar who fooled a lot of people, but has now been exposed.

An interesting story with links to PodCast of This American Life, etc.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/16/this-american-life-mike-daisey-retraction-foxconn_n_1353933.html

[GeorgiaBoy]

Just happened to hear this listening to the radio. He basically took a few true things and turned them into pure lies.

[WillBrink]

Just happened to hear this listening to the radio. He basically took a few true things and turned them into pure lies.

Reminds of people like Michael Moore on the far left, or Rush Limbaugh on the far right: the end-justifies-the-means and facts be damned.

[GeorgiaBoy]

I'm sure there are child workers in China. I'm sure that there are workers working far more than our "48 hour" standard workweek. But its far from the norm. Its a small percentage.

Though I am kind of split on what I feel about those that are child workers. One side of me says its bad and wrong, and the other says that as long as the minors aren't being forced too work, that 13, 14, 15 year old's should be able to work if they want the money. Same goes with long work weeks for regular workers. If they want to work and make the money, let them do what they want. (As long as they aren't being forced, of course.)

We went through this exact same situation in the late 1800's when we had our industrial revolution/expansion. China hasn't really been a huge, booming, industrial, mass-producing nation but for the past 30 years.

[CarlosDJackal]

This is just sad. Everyone knows that there are plenty of inhumane working conditions in China. You have got to be one underhanded and lazy individual to fabricate a story instead of reporting one of the actual cases.

[ChicagoTex]

Actually, fairly extensive independent analysis of the working conditions at Foxconn (Apple's primary manufacturer for hardware until the iPhone 5) have repeatedly shown that treatment and payment of employees is well above average for the Chinese industrial sector.

Granted, compared to US employment standards that's a fairly low bar, but I think it shows that Foxconn is attempting to operate in general good faith (within social norms and with an eye towards maximizing profit, of course) and are a far cry from the "pacific sweatshops filled with children sewing up Nikes in the 80s" horror stories.

The reason for the what-is-perceived-as-high amount of suicides at Foxconn is because the company employs an unfathomably large amount of people (there are 980,000 employees at their main campus). As there were only 14 suicides at Foxconn in 2010 (or roughly 0.0014%), and the national suicide rate in China was reported as 0.022% in 2010, they also have a drastically lower suicide rate than most other Chinese manufacturing businesses.

The most legitimate complaints I'm personally aware of in re: conditions at Foxconn are the not-uncommon 15 hour shifts (and alleged 31 hour shifts in major crunch periods such as the initial production period of the iPhone 4), the absence of air conditioning in most of the work areas, and the extremely curious legal documents all employees were forced to sign in the wake of the 2010 suicides stating that they and their families cannot sue the company due to deliberate self-induced injury/suicide (reasonable) or "unexpected death" (:blink::confused:).

[Mauser KAR98K]

"you provide the pictures, I'll provide the war."

[CarlosDJackal]

Actually, fairly extensive independent analysis of the working conditions at Foxconn (Apple's primary manufacturer for hardware until the iPhone 5) have repeatedly shown that treatment and payment of employees is well above average for the Chinese industrial sector...

I'm assuming that you were responding to my post. I was referring to China in general and not any particular factory or manufacturer.

I saw a special where Ericsson (sp?), the cell phone manufacturer almost pulled the plug on one of their factories because of the mistreatment of the workers (extreme hours, bad living conditions, over charging for living quarters, etc.).

[ChicagoTex]

I'm assuming that you were responding to my post. I was referring to China in general and not any particular factory or manufacturer.

I figured that was the case and wasn't trying to rebuke you, I just figured at this point in the discussion it was apt to point out why Foxconn, in particular, was an incredibly poor choice for the purposes of Mr. Daisey's yellow journalism.

[chadbag]

Now Can We Start Talking About the Real Foxconn? - Bloomberg


http://go.bloomberg.com/tech-blog/2012-03-20-now-can-we-start-talking-about-the-real-foxconn/



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